Mr

[Raj]

Did Jesus predict the coming of Muhammad in the bible? 

[Paige Elizabeth]

Muslims have argued for years that the Bible verse John 14:16,

 “And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever," 

predicts the coming of Muhammad. They use Surah 61:6 (from the Quran), 

"And [mention] when Jesus, the son of Mary, said, "O children of Israel, indeed I am the messenger of Allah to you confirming what came before me of the Torah and bringing good tidings of a messenger to come after me, whose name is Ahmad."

But when he came to them with clear evidences, they said, "This is obvious magic." to justify their argument that Muhammad is a prophet predicted by Jesus. 

This is all fine and dandy until you get into the original language of the verse and understand that in Arabic, the word for Ahmad (praised one) is equivalent to the word periclytos (praised one) in Greek. Unfortunately for their argument, the word periclytos does not appear in the verse found in John. John actually includes the Greek word paraclete (helper). Therefore, if the Muslims wish to argue that John does predict the coming of Muhammad, they would have to find evidence and support for the idea that the text of John is corrupt. 

I don't think Jesus directly stated that there would be the rise of Muhammad or the Islamic faith, but He does warn of false faiths and prophets in Matthew 7:15. So we do have a sort of prediction of a new faith or prophet rising up, but it's not named. Throughout the New Testament, Jesus often refers to a new helper coming in the near future and multiple times He says that this helper will be coming in His (Jesus') Name. Adding on to the fact Jesus said that the helper would be coming in a short number of days (Acts 1:5), Muhammad can be argued against because he did not come around until nearly 600 years after Jesus said this. 

 

I hope this helped! Let me know if it is not clear enough!